Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang to step down

YAHOO FOUNDER Jerry Yang has finally decided to quit the search engine outfit just before the the good ship Yahoo's bow rises into the air and Celine Dion starts to warble about her love going ooonnnn.

Yang has said that he will clean out his desk after 17-months running the internet company that he started 14 years ago. He said he will leave the moment the company can find someone else to drink from the poisoned chalice he has left behind.

Although Yang still wants the job, Yahoo's board faced intensifying pressure to spurn him like a rabid dog as the company's shares plunged to their lowest levels since early 2003.

The reason for the share crisis was Yang’s phobia about Microsoft. He refused to sell the company to Microsoft for $47.5 billion six months ago claiming it undervalued the company, when it clearly overvalued it. Instead tried to prop up his company with a bizarre deal with rivals Google, which was never going to get past the regulators.

The only rationale behind the move was that "at least it was not Microsoft". It is a concept which works when you are small start-up snarling against the Evil Empire, but is not befitting a huge public company.

However the net result of Yang's leadership is that shareholders have lost millions, the company share price is in free fall and no one has a cunning plan to sort out the mess.

Yang will not be going away. He will revert to his former role of "Chief Yahoo" and remain on the outfit’s board. Ironically, if someone else does sort out the mess he created, he will make a fortune as the share price increases.

Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock, probably desperate to find something nice to say about Yang, said that he led the repositioning of Yahoo! on an open platform model as well as the “improved alignment” of costs and revenues.

We are not sure what the last bit meant. The company's net income dropped 64 per cent in the last year, so we are not sure if this is an improved anything. µ

L'Inq
AP